Debates of April 16th, 2010

Bill C-2—Time Allocation Motion

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, how could the minister say to a Liberal MP that he did not believe that the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement would have a negative impact on human rights in Colombia?

This agreement will allow a significant increase in investment in mining companies in Colombia, namely Canadian mining companies. Over the years, the mining companies' activities have been detrimental to human rights in Colombia. Thousands of people have had to move away from their usual surroundings to large cities and they have lost their autonomy. A number of unionists defending the rights of those people have also been killed.

I do not understand how the minister can say that the bill on the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement will not affect human rights.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in this agreement we have a parallel accord on the environment, which helps protect the conditions of people in the areas where economic activity will be taking place. We also have a parallel agreement in labour, which includes, among other things, entrenching and protecting the rights to free association, to be a part of a union, to advocate one's case. That creates yet another point of control, of oversight, of respect for those rights.

Colombia has to take them into account because of the fact it has something at stake, and that is its trading relationship with Canada and its agreement with Canada. It is an example of how we are improving the conditions for Colombians should we move ahead with this agreement.

I reject the notion that investments that create jobs for people in Colombia will hurt them. We actually think jobs for people here in Canada are good for Canadians. We think jobs in Colombia for Colombians are good for Colombians.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, clearly the government has embarked on a process of closure here.

It was the current government that prorogued the House and set back all of this legislation. The government set back not only this bill, but dozens of other bills that we worked very hard on to get them to the stages where they were. Just with the stroke of a pen, the Conservative government shut down the House and put everything back to square one. Now the government expects things to be put back together, as if it did not create the situation in the first place.

In a provincial legislature like Manitoba's, members can make amendments and debate those amendments. The government brought in a resolution a few weeks ago to limit the amendments. It put a chain around us and told us we could not amend the bill. The government let us go through our speakers' list and now it is trying to restrict us even more by shutting down the debate. That is what this is all about.

The government has waited until a Friday afternoon to do this when it knows some members have gone back to their ridings. This is all part of the Conservatives' parliamentary warfare that they are conducting against the opposition in this House.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary warfare is the unprecedented delay and obstruction filibuster that Bill C-2 has been receiving at the hands of the New Democratic Party in particular.

Our rules contemplate that each member can speak once. As a result of there being two separate sessions of this Parliament, this bill has been spoken to by 38 members of the New Democratic Party, yet that party only has 37 members in the House. That is the most interesting definition of denying them an opportunity to speak that I have ever heard.

The New Democratic Party has embarked on a process of delay and obstruction at every stage of this bill. Those members do not want to see the bill advance. If they wanted to see the bill advance, if they wanted to make amendments to it, they would have an opportunity to do that at committee.

Let us get this bill through second reading. Let us get it to committee where members can have a opportunity to speak to it and participate and make amendments, as the Liberal Party has indicated it wishes to do. We have indicated an openness to the Liberal Party in doing so. Let us get on with doing some real work and delivering some results for Canadians.

[Guy André, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are seeing yet again that the Conservatives do not care for parliamentary debate. The government prorogued the House and now we are debating the agreement between Canada and Colombia, which is critical to the people of Colombia, Quebec and Canada.

We are against this agreement, as are many social groups, unions and women's groups because in Colombia, human rights and environmental standards are not being respected.

I took part in a parliamentary mission to Colombia as part of my work with the Standing Committee on International Trade. We met with numerous groups who are opposed to this agreement, which would worsen the human rights situation in Colombia.

Did the minister read the report from the Standing Committee on International Trade before he introduced this bill? I do not think that he did because the agreement was signed before we even returned from the mission in Colombia. The government spent a large amount of money sending a parliamentary committee to Colombia to look at the issue, but then it did not even read the committee's report.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have paid great attention, with interest, to the work of the committee. Even though this bill has not yet arrived at the committee, the committee has already studied this bill twice. They have already studied the subject matter of this bill twice, so that tells me something.

I have looked at what some of the witnesses there have said in appearing at the committee. This is so long ago, last year, that I was not even minister back then. I read this from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives' executive vice-president, David Stewart-Patterson:

In this environment, I think it's vital for Canadian companies to continue to do everything possible to diversify their export markets. Passing Bill C-23 would reinforce these efforts. Conversely, further delays in passage of this bill would undermine the goal of improving Canada's global trade performance and slow our return to strong economic growth.

Further, he said:

Colombia's tariffs on Canadian goods currently range from 15% to 108%, which obviously represents a huge disadvantage right now for Canadian exporters. Passage of Bill C-23 would erase that disadvantage and help Canadian workers, farmers, and businesses stay ahead of our global competitors.

That is what we are trying to do here. We are trying to create jobs and opportunity for Canadians, success for Canadian businesses and farmers. We are working hard to make it happen and those parties are doing everything they can to delay and obstruct the success of our work.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my area of expertise and particular interest is the environment.

Since Brian Mulroney's government, the Conservatives have put forward a number of free trade proposals, some of which have been implemented, that are a race to the bottom in many areas but especially on the environment. Dozens of environmental groups have castigated Colombia's almost total lack of environmental protection in one of the most sensitive and biodiverse regions on the planet. Not one has endorsed it.

I would like to read from the proposed Canada-Colombia free trade agreement:

Each Party shall ensure that it maintains appropriate procedures for assessing the environmental impacts in accordance with national law...

The problem is that Colombia has virtually no environmental regulations. It has virtually no environmental laws. It has no willingness to protect either human rights or the environment.

For the hon. member of the Conservative Party to say that there are parallel agreements in the environment is to avoid the facts. Could he respond to this please?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, we have a free trade agreement but we also have aside it two parallel agreements, one on labour and one on the environment. These create obligations on both parties. That means obligations on the Colombian government. One of those agreements is entirely focused on the environment and the protection of the environment.

If this bill does not pass, if this agreement does not come into effect, those obligations of Colombia with regard to the environment do not come into force. That is why I am bewildered at the efforts here by the opposition parties to claim that they want to protect the environment and the rights of workers in Colombia, but then do not give them the benefit of the protections that this agreement proposes to give to them.

This is an opportunity to see benefits, improvements and conditions in Colombia and in Canada, but particularly on the environment side and the labour side in Colombia. These are things that all parties, if they believe in the things they say they do, will support, but instead they do not support it. They take every opportunity they can to speak, and in the case of the member's party, the NDP, we had 38 speeches from 37 members. We have heard a lot. It is time now to move to the next stage.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative government is currently doing nothing to force Canadian companies to be socially responsible when they invest abroad.

The Bloc Québécois has always subscribed to the principle that international trade must allow for the mutual enrichment and development of the parties. The new rules in the 2010 budget create loopholes that benefit extractive and mining companies.

I am opposed to this fast tracking procedure, which would prevent parliamentarians from fully examining all important aspects affecting the Colombian population.

There are new facts and elements that must be studied further. I feel we should exercise due diligence with a request to fast track the adoption of an international agreement between Canada and Colombia.

How can the department attempt to impose this agreement when Foreign Affairs and International Trade and the other government departments involved do not follow up on requests for access to information on the matter?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we believe that if there are new interesting questions for members opposite to address, we might have heard them doing that during the debate so far, but the debate has, once it started getting into the thirties, been a little bit repetitious. We have been hearing the same themes and we are hearing them in the question and answer period.

The fact is, the opposition parties, with 89 speeches so far on this, have had a full opportunity to debate the issue. The bill still needs to go to committee where it will have a full and ample debate and clause-by-clause study. After that, it will come back here for report stage and third reading debate and then over to the Senate for all those stages all over again.

It is quite clear from the other parties that there is no point at which those two opposition parties will be satisfied. Their agenda is clear and simple. They are taking every step possible to obstruct and delay this debate and prevent the bill's passage. That is why, unfortunately, after 89 speeches at second reading stage, we need to use this measure to allow it to get to the next stage of work.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the government has agreed to support an amendment to this legislation at committee but as I look at it I just have a sense that those types of amendments just might be beyond the scope of the bill at committee. We might run into things like challenges to the chair and it might not be a straight line.

I am wondering if the government has actually scoped out how it intends to facilitate the amendment of this nature to the bill and whether it has considered a possible motion of instruction to the committee that would follow adoption of the bill at second reading, just to ensure that those amendments can happen.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

As I say, Mr. Speaker, we are a little bit into the speculative realm because the amendment has not actually been put. We have a clear indication of roughly what it would be from the opposition Liberals and we have indicated our willingness to support it. We are certainly happy to discuss the best way to get those mechanics to happen, but before we can even get there we need to pass the motion before the House today.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been said many times during the debate, but it is worth repeating, that the real purpose of this agreement is not to increase trade between Colombia and Canada but to implement the provisions on Canadian investments in Colombia.

The fact is that this bill will result in Colombia relinquishing its authority to legislate in a number of areas. Canadian companies that invest in Colombia will in future be able to sue the Colombian government if new measures are adopted in all sorts of areas—particularly the environment, labour legislation, and so forth—which would reduce their profits.

First, we believe that it is always wrong for countries to essentially abandon their right to legislate, and that it is especially tragic in the case of a developing country such as Colombia.

For that reason, we must oppose this bill. A number of Colombian as well as Quebec and Canadian organizations share the Bloc's view on this matter.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the nature of every international agreement any country enters into involves the surrendering of a little bit of sovereignty and the agreement to accept certain norms and standards. When we sign on to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights we are, for example, doing that. Every country is.

We in Canada believe that the more we can move countries to accept these kinds of norms and enter into these kinds of agreements, and we have seen this over the course of history, is that the living of conditions have improved and human rights have improved. That is the nature of international agreements, that is what happens from greater trading relations between countries and that is what this agreement would help to further advance.

I am very surprised to hear a member of the Bloc Québécois opposing that kind of international engagement because it is certainly not what I have seen from that party in the past.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The question is as follows. May I dispense?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

[Chair read text of motion to House]